When it came down to it, the Lightwing design was just one of Eason French's flights of fancy from his student days—an advanced version of a solar sail. Its ingenuity lay in its craftsmanship and design, but sooner or later, someone would reverse-engineer a copy. Since that was inevitable, they might as well cash in before putting it on the market.
"All right, I'll reserve judgment. But since it's your decision, Lian, I'm sure it'll be fine." Liuli nodded, looking every bit the supportive wife.
"I'll move forward with negotiations with Thor Industries. But, as you said, we'll wait until after the finals to get into the specifics."
She smiled. "And you're right: if the Lightwing is installed on a fighter, it's just an auxiliary piece of military equipment. But put one on a small ship, and it can greatly improve a cruise liner's performance. That's what will really get the major shipyards interested."
That made perfect sense. If anything in this world made more money than the military-industrial sector, it was luxury goods. In the age of interstellar navigation, luxury products that could pass themselves off as consumer industrial goods—like cruise liners—were in a league of their own.
Of course, Yu Lian hoped others would keep mistaking small ships fitted with Lightwings for high-speed luxury cruisers. That was one of the reasons he wanted New China No. 1 to compete in the race.
"Speaking of which, No. 1 is here, but where did No. 2, the ship Annie's got, end up? Weren't you all doing the final outfitting together in Gibraltar?"
"Didn't she say she was taking No. 2 along the Shanhai Passage for a long-distance voyage test?"
"I know that much. I also know she took out a pretty famous pirate in the Shanhai Passage, and happened to